Driving School and Good Eats

Its a good day to learn to back a trailer.  Windy as usual, but a nice day.

And for all of Cyndee's buddies back at the pre-school who just can't imagine Cyndee driving a truck with a trailer, well, check this out:

But you say; "Aw, she is just sitting in the truck yard.  Anybody can get their picture taken with it in park."  Okay, then, how about a video of her showing off her new backing skills.  Below is a video of backing the trailer in a straight line.  It is hard to see her in the shadow of the cab but she is doing this skill using the side-mirrors only, not looking back over her shoulder.

I have a video but Google is hosed up and won't load it.  I'll keep trying for a few days.  Check back later.

5 days later:  Okay, I give up.  Google just will not cooperate and let me have access to the page where I am supposed to "agree to terms & conditions".

 

After a hard days training at truck driving my folks took us out to a spot in the country for a steak dinner.  The name of the place is the XXL Ranch and Steakhouse.  This place has only been in business a few years so we had never even heard of it.  It is out in the sticks, down a private ranch road between the towns of Stinnett and Dumas.  It is only open on Friday and Saturday evenings and only be reservation.  The meal is fixed, there are no menus, the only choice you have is what you are having to drink and how done you want your steak.  Simple.

 

It was about a thirty minute drive and the heat had started tailing back early this afternoon.  The sun was getting low on the horizon as we turned off the highway and started down the dusty, two-rut road to the ranch house.  Just as we crossed a cattle guard separating farm fields from grazing land we spotted prong horn antelope enjoying a little leisure time.

 

Normally, the grass is brown by this time of the year and these guys are hard to spot.
But moisture has been available a little late into the season this year and things are still green.

 

The fence has no affect on the antelope, it just keeps the cattle from getting to
the irrigated crops.  I've seen prong horns jump five-strand fences at a full run,
from a standing start or just crawl under.  These are wild animals and they range over
millions of acres all through the high plains.

These guys are the race cars of the plains.  They can run flat out at 55 mph for a half mile
and sustain 35 mph for 4 miles.  That is pick'n 'em up and put'n 'em down!  They share this grassland with
Mule Deer and White Tale Deer and roam far and wide.

We sat there and watched and photographed long enough that they got nervous about all the attention and started moving off.  So we coasted on down the road and in just a short while were pulling under a shade tree to park.  The steak house is just what it says it is, it is an old ranch house with a low roof line, rough sawn lumber and little paint.

 

My mother's husband, Tommy, says; "Ya'll quit fooling with them cameras and lets go eat some steak!"

The shoulders of my 6'5" frame come almost to the top of the door, I stoop down and step in and when I look up I am staring right down on the grill with large slabs of bone-in prime rib being cooked to perfection.  We are shown to our table and asked what we would like to drink.  Somebody brings out bottles of salad dressing and then a small bowl of salad quickly followed by our drinks.  With the delivery of our drinks we were asked how we liked our steaks and that was it.  No choice of sides, no choice of cut of meat or size of cut.  It was just 'here it is'.

 

Tommy's desire to eat some steak was fulfilled.  Four big plates were laid before us and as big as those plates were they could not contain that delectable hunk of cow that was on it.

 

 

And as an added bonus there was a nice piece of chorizo sausage topping the steak.  Can you say heart attack on a plate?  This is way off our diet reservation but I couldn't help myself.  I ate everything but the bone.  Tommy's cow dog, Buck, got that.

 

That's Buck, the one on the right.
Ooohh I'm gonna get in trouble for that one.

There was still some light left as we headed back to Borger so we took the scenic route home and went over the dam of Lake Meredith.  It is a sad sight to see.  The drought has been so severe and so long that the lake is virtually empty.  The marina is gone, all the boat ramps but one are very high and dry.  The house boats and sailboats that called the marina home have all been lifted out by a crane and indignantly deposited bare-hulled onto the asphalt parking lot.  The lake can no longer supply the drinking water to the panhandle, hundreds of water wells have been drilled and networks of pipelines now deliver water from the Ogallala aquifer to surrounding communities.

 

This is Lake Meredith in its heyday, about 1977.  Notice the large, concrete
intake tower on the left.

This is 2013. I took the picture from the same location as I did 36 years ago.
The water level is down about 50' and the intake tower barely has water touching it.

I hate to finish this post on a downer but if this more than a decade long drought does not break, the future of the panhandle of Texas looks bleak.